How Sweet It Is...
....To be loved by you!
We have just come from the most amazing trip to New Braunfels, Texas. Where we were blessed beyond measure by the amazing and faithful Celebrate Life Church. We have truly come to the place where it is our home away from home.
We were able to spend 4 whole weeks with the amazing family we have there and as always we have come away with even more friends than we had before we arrived. There was no competition between those who welcomed us back or those who were new to us when we arrived. Each person we met was special in their own way and so many have knit themselves with us - heart to heart.
We have left blessed, loved, encouraged and filled with so much more than we can put to words right here. Thank You Pastor Terry Knighten for your leadership and your impartation to us. We cannot thank you enough for all that you have done for the Kingdom through us and what God has called us to do. We are grateful on behalf of the people that we so dearly love and whose needs we have come back to represent. We know that simply having the honor of your relationship will benefit them as we share the truth with them, but you have stretched out your hand in so many other ways that there is no way to sum it all up here. Lives have been changed because of the real, real! They always are.
Thank you to each and every person that we have spent the last month with. I am unable to express our gratitude sufficiently, but I am also unable to avoid trying. There is no question that God is not a liar and anything we have seemingly left behind he has replaced many times over. We are honored and humbled by the expression of love that we were given while we were in Texas. It is only through the favor and blessing of God that any of the many, many moments of fellowship or giving were possible so we give thanks to God who always leads us in everything!
There is a common goal between those who choose to seek and live in the "real, real." That goal is to be in the presence of Jesus and everything else just flows out of that. Through our love affair with Him, (I can't imagine what else to call it) we have an earnest and heartfelt desire to want what He wants and love what He loves. We seek to do His will but all that really means is that we seek to express the love we have so freely received from Him. Doing that just automatically ends up with us being blessed so we can be a blessing to someone else.
The whole point of us seeking to diminish while He increases in us and through us is so that real blessing will flow. To us and then through us or through us and back to us, this is how it is meant to work, but I have honestly lost track of where we are in the process at this point. Our personal desire is to bask in His love, but that would be fruitless if we had no avenue to express that love.
We do, and we thank God for it. We are so in awe of how much we enjoy what we have been called to do. We have discovered our place and in that we have found that joy unspeakable and full of glory. Those are not just empty words, but a pale description of how we feel. There was a time in my life when I sang those words not having the slightest understanding what they meant. They were foreign, churchy, "Christianise" language, and I was unsure of their true meaning. Today, I don't claim to have arrived anywhere more special than anyone else, but I do understand those words now. I do understand them in a new and greater way. This is not an experience of Joy or even Peace that is attainable outside of God. That is the easiest way to explain why they are both unspeakable and full of His Glory.
Finding and living in the life that Jesus offers us leads everyone to this. Whatever this is. We love what we do, and we are always grateful and amazed when anyone steps out to help us do it. That is one of those unspeakable joys because we flounder in our attempts to say "thank you" and in our attempts to show our gratitude.
We have simply chosen again and again to say Yes to God. It was harder at first than it seems to be now, but that makes perfect sense because we have such a vast wealth of experiences which prove to us that we can fully trust in Him. It almost seems to get a little easier every time we do it. Of course, then He raises the stakes and we are faced with a new set of experiences for us to journey through.
We thank you for your support and we thank you for your prayers. That is the only way we can say it and it seems flat and sad to me because my heart is bursting. I just don't know of any language I can speak, outside of a heavenly one, that can begin to say what is in me....but there it is.
Thank You ... Celebrate Life Church, New Braunfels, Texas!
Thank You!
We have just come from the most amazing trip to New Braunfels, Texas. Where we were blessed beyond measure by the amazing and faithful Celebrate Life Church. We have truly come to the place where it is our home away from home.
We were able to spend 4 whole weeks with the amazing family we have there and as always we have come away with even more friends than we had before we arrived. There was no competition between those who welcomed us back or those who were new to us when we arrived. Each person we met was special in their own way and so many have knit themselves with us - heart to heart.
We have left blessed, loved, encouraged and filled with so much more than we can put to words right here. Thank You Pastor Terry Knighten for your leadership and your impartation to us. We cannot thank you enough for all that you have done for the Kingdom through us and what God has called us to do. We are grateful on behalf of the people that we so dearly love and whose needs we have come back to represent. We know that simply having the honor of your relationship will benefit them as we share the truth with them, but you have stretched out your hand in so many other ways that there is no way to sum it all up here. Lives have been changed because of the real, real! They always are.
Thank you to each and every person that we have spent the last month with. I am unable to express our gratitude sufficiently, but I am also unable to avoid trying. There is no question that God is not a liar and anything we have seemingly left behind he has replaced many times over. We are honored and humbled by the expression of love that we were given while we were in Texas. It is only through the favor and blessing of God that any of the many, many moments of fellowship or giving were possible so we give thanks to God who always leads us in everything!
There is a common goal between those who choose to seek and live in the "real, real." That goal is to be in the presence of Jesus and everything else just flows out of that. Through our love affair with Him, (I can't imagine what else to call it) we have an earnest and heartfelt desire to want what He wants and love what He loves. We seek to do His will but all that really means is that we seek to express the love we have so freely received from Him. Doing that just automatically ends up with us being blessed so we can be a blessing to someone else.
The whole point of us seeking to diminish while He increases in us and through us is so that real blessing will flow. To us and then through us or through us and back to us, this is how it is meant to work, but I have honestly lost track of where we are in the process at this point. Our personal desire is to bask in His love, but that would be fruitless if we had no avenue to express that love.
We do, and we thank God for it. We are so in awe of how much we enjoy what we have been called to do. We have discovered our place and in that we have found that joy unspeakable and full of glory. Those are not just empty words, but a pale description of how we feel. There was a time in my life when I sang those words not having the slightest understanding what they meant. They were foreign, churchy, "Christianise" language, and I was unsure of their true meaning. Today, I don't claim to have arrived anywhere more special than anyone else, but I do understand those words now. I do understand them in a new and greater way. This is not an experience of Joy or even Peace that is attainable outside of God. That is the easiest way to explain why they are both unspeakable and full of His Glory.
Finding and living in the life that Jesus offers us leads everyone to this. Whatever this is. We love what we do, and we are always grateful and amazed when anyone steps out to help us do it. That is one of those unspeakable joys because we flounder in our attempts to say "thank you" and in our attempts to show our gratitude.
We have simply chosen again and again to say Yes to God. It was harder at first than it seems to be now, but that makes perfect sense because we have such a vast wealth of experiences which prove to us that we can fully trust in Him. It almost seems to get a little easier every time we do it. Of course, then He raises the stakes and we are faced with a new set of experiences for us to journey through.
We thank you for your support and we thank you for your prayers. That is the only way we can say it and it seems flat and sad to me because my heart is bursting. I just don't know of any language I can speak, outside of a heavenly one, that can begin to say what is in me....but there it is.
Thank You ... Celebrate Life Church, New Braunfels, Texas!
Thank You!
posted by Troy and Grace Elliott at Saturday, April 25, 2009
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